First day of the new school year at Ohana
The first day of school is always filled with new beginnings and time to adjust back to the school routine, together with familiarity and fun. We were so happy to be back with our teachers and friends at Ohana International School and were glad to see that we know many friends from Petals Class and some from the old Flowers Class. Our classroom is also familiar because it is the same design as all the classrooms in the school and we recognized a lot of the décor and equipment. We have a new felt board and are looking forward to creating our own stories on it and we have a Lego wall. We now have a block and Lego area where we can build with wooden blocks and Lego pieces and if we are have not completed our constructions, we can leave them out and add to them later in the day or the next day. All our Lego pieces are colour coded into draws and we were very clear when we were playing with them, about where the pieces belonged. When Shelley showed us the Lego draws, she nearly put one piece into the wrong colour and we quickly stopped her and told her where it belonged. Phew!
Another new area in the room is an office/literacy area where we can draw and write and create. We have a container with papers nearby and can access them easily. At the moment, we are focusing on what we did during our summer vacation. Once we have completed our drawings, we go to the computer and tell Shelley all about our drawing and what the shapes and pictures represent. She then writes a story for us on the computer. We have a large map of the world on the wall and we will do some research to see where we all went during summer and plot the places on the map. Yurika used the pointer finger to show us where Japan is on the map. Some of us told our teachers where we went during the summer vacation viz. Griffin went to America, Dev went to South Korea, Joaquin went to America, Hisami and Shelley both went to India, Kai went to Bulgaria, Alona went to Israel, Risako went to Japan and Jotaro went to Vietnam. We will ask all our friends where they went so that everyone is represented on the map.
Our imaginative play area has some new dressing up clothes in it and Risako and Mirai dressed up in the new princess clothes and made a huge picnic on the carpet.
We have a special “Sign In” table where we write our names in a book, at the beginning of the day. Some of us are still learning how to write our names which is fine. Our teachers would like us to write in whichever way we are able to, to take responsibility for saying “I am at school today”. Another way that we do this is by finding our names on the magnetic board and placing them under the words “I am here today”.
We sang our “Hello” song and learnt the names of all our friends. We remembered the words of the song and were happy to sing loudly and joyfully with our friends and teachers. We are slowly but surely getting used to being with one another after a long summer vacation. For most of us it feels fantastic and so much fun, while also feeling both strange and familiar.
We had a short day today so that we could all have time to wean ourselves back into our new classes and routines. We know that the rest of the year is going to be filled with fun, discovery, excitement, adventure, learning, and togetherness. Our teachers are going to be introducing many new things to us and we will wait patiently, in anticipation, to see what the year will bring.
We would love to all have the opportunity for a photo in our special 1st day at Ohana frame so please mums and dads, remember to do this when we come to school this week.
Lots of love always from the children in Flowers Class.